Hair conditioning compositions have widely been used for improving primarily combability of hair and furthermore enhancing smoothness, elasticity and shine. Many type of conditioners have been found on the market varying from emulsions, which are generally rinsed of from hair after application and certain period of processing time, to low viscosity lotions used without rinsing off after application. Hair shine improvement has been one of the main areas of development. Hair shine is very much related to the surface structure of hair and this varies very much with the degree of damage either by environmental effects or chemical treatment of hair such as permanent shaping or oxidative colouring. Although consumers with healthy non-damaged hair are generally satisfied with hair shine, shine of damaged hair is usually found to be unsatisfactory. There have been studies aiming improving shine of especially damaged hair.
Conditioner either leave-in and rinse off types have been widely used in hair dressing area. In the last decade especially leave-in conditioning compositions have gained much attention starting from Europe and still increasingly growing in Asian markets.
Leave-in conditioning compositions are especially found appropriate by consumers as they can generally be applied at the sites where necessary and the processing time does not have to be predetermined and more importantly washing hair after certain processing time is not needed.
Shine is an important property of hair indicating its healthiness and cosmetically appealing look. Although shine enhancing preparations are widely available, there is still need for improvement.
Additionally, shine enhancing of hair together with other hair care benefits are increasingly been found as main product benefit. Among other products, products with two physically separated phases at zero share rate have recently been put onto market.
For example WO 02/060397 discloses dual phase conditioning and styling composition for heat styling hair. According to the document compositions comprise an oil phase comprising volatile oil and an aqueous alcoholic phase comprising styling polymer, an emulsifier and salt. The document does not address at all shine enhancing of hair and especially does not disclose any composition which may fall within the scope of the present invention.
EP 996 408 discloses dual phased compositions for make up cleansing wherein a polyvinylpyrrolidone copolymer is used as a demixing agent. The documents does not address at all hair care application of such composition.